[Laughing Man]

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As for The Transformers movie, the reason the Transformers have a more skeletal frame is because they wanted to make things realistic as possible. Just think about it, with the solid limbed transformers that appeared in all of the animated series, you see that it cannot exist in a real world setting simply because the areas where the limbs fold into are SUPPOSED to be filled with engines and other parts.... It's not a case of overcomplicating things, it's just an effort to make things look like they make sense in the first place. You can't expect it to look as animated as the cartoons in a liveaction setting.

Also the resemblence to insects is probably because insects are the most efficient mechanical forms that exist in nature... think about it.

What about the Altenators/Binal Tech transformer toys? there are real cars that transform into robots and still have that G1 feel and still look good.
If you ever picked up any of the TF:More than meets the eye profile books that Dreamwave did back in 03/04 they explain how megatron can be 50 feet tall and how soundwave and blaster can be so small. and still look like they function like they werent really robots you gotta read it all i think it was in the last one wich was #8 or 9 its also explains there calandar years and how old they are

They could have kept the same head sculpts atleast. you can barely make out their faces and except for the obvious ones you dont really know whos who
I understand the whole inscet/mechanical thing its an interesting take on the TF universe but when this first got announced a while back michael bay said he was going to keep it true to G1 for the fans. Thats where all the disapointment comes from